UTAH

Unlike yesterday today was warm and about 62F at noon. This day was devoted to the 101st and 82nd Airborne Parachute Infantry divisions. On D Day they jumped several hours before the assault on Utah Beach, also invaded by American infantry divisions.  The beaches could not be more different geographically. Whereas Rangers had to scale Pointe du Hoc, the PIR parachutists and glider companies were tasked with clearing Utah Beach from the rear. These are what the Band of Brothers, Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment did.

As anyone who has seen " Band of Brother," Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day," or read the books then you know that the planes carrying parachutists were blown off course by the wind, or their formation was destroyed by German flak. Their job was made more difficult by fields flooded by the Germans. The ultimately prevailed with heavy casualties, but not as heavy as those on Omaha.

In the afternoon we visited St Mer Eglise, known best for the parachutist caught on the church's cathedral steeple. Seacoast Community Chorus singers visited this church in 2011 and saw its beautiful stained glass windows with  St Michael portrayed as a parachutist. There is another window at the back of the church that also includes liberating soldiers with holy ones.

On a completely personal note: I have been able to be a slow but steady member of our group, trying to participate in every activity if only for a little while. My average distance has been around 5 Km/day--with a bad back and bleeding blister on my right foot. In St Mer Eglise my friend Liz found me a drug store and when I walked out I had 48 Euros worth of bandages for the blister on my right toe that has been the guilty culprit.

Antoine Saintt Exeupery, the author of the "Little Prince," a children's book for grown ups wrote the following to the men going to Utah Beach, after describing them as honorable men who gave up their comfortable lives in the US to join the fight:

And what were they told that could motivate [American men] them to sacrifice their lives?They were told of hostages hanged in Poland. They were told of prisoners shot in France. They were told that a new form of slavery threatened  to extinguish a part of Humanity. They were told not about themselves but of others. That gave them a sense of solidarity with Mankind. 

The fifty thousand soldiers in my convoy went to war not to save American Citizens, but rather for Man himself, respect for Mankind, liberty for all men, the greatness of Man...

 Let that still be true.

OMAHA

The tour for today, Sunday, Sept 23^rd, was of Omaha Beach, and Pointe de Hoc, under the guidance of a Bayeux resident named Christof. It was pouring with the wind blowing at 40 mph for most of the day. (People in jeans got soaked. I got soaked, too, but the travel pants dried quickly.) These were not the ideal conditions we dreamed of for what many of us considered to be the most important day of the Beyond the Band of Brothers tour.

But Christof really made the battle come alive. Our first visit was to a German Cemetery. The crosses there are arranged in groups of 5. After the war Germany could not afford a burial site anything like the US Cemetery, but it had its own sense of sadness, perhaps best exemplified by the mostly black crosses in German cemeteries. The Germans had many casualties on 6-6-44 as well. Years after the war the German people planted  trees along the road between Bayeux and the Normandy coastline—one for each dead soldier. One of the decisions that the German government made then was not to separate the graves of Wehrmacht troops from those who were SS. This was done mostly to prevent desecration of their graves.

In all there were more than 20 battlefield cemeteries. Men buried in freshly dug graves on both sides were later exhumed and reburied in a central location, and then moved again as Allied forces moved east. In the early 50s families were given the opportunity to have their loved ones’ remains returned to the US or reburied in what is now the US Cemetery at Omaha Beach. About 60% chose to bring their sons and brothers, fathers and uncles home. The remainder from Normandy are buried here.

Not all died on D-Day. It took over a month to liberate the Normandy province. There are also unique graves like those of a father and son, the father killed on Normandy, the son about two weeks earlier in May 1944. The father did not know his son had been killed. Sadly the telegrams from the War Department arrived at their family home within an hour of each other.

This may seem like a macabre topic but at the same time it is an important one. Certainly it was not possible to bury our dead soldiers in permanent graves as the troops rapidly advanced. The US Cemetery, to me, is sacred ground. It is not about death but sacrifice. These young men, some as young as 16 or 17 knew they had to do what they did if they were to save the freedoms we still enjoy.

The wind was dreadful. The rain was dreadful. Some of us got soaked, some merely wet. (Don’t wear heavy cotton blue jeans in a torrential downpour.)

Although I have repeated many of Christof’s sad stories there were some incredibly brave stories to be told. What they spoke to was American and British ingenuity and doggedness in the face of terrible odds.

I was at the US Cemetery in 2011 with Seacoast Community Chorus. That was a warm, sunny days. We could walk the cemetery at will. Today much of the site was closed to visitors. I don’t know whether or not it was the rain or preparations for next year’s 75^th anniversary celebration. Perhaps a bit of both. Yet there was a single rose laid at each grave. And the rain added to both the solemnity of the place--and our wonderment that these young men gave their lives for an abstract cause called freedom. 

I am having trouble uplaoding pictures will add tomorrow.

Traveling with Sticks and Spokes-- a post in honor of Dolly and Don Craft

I decided to write this blog post after reading one from my cross country biking friend, Dolly Craft. She and her husband Don often tour by tandem bike.  Riding a tandem is a lot more difficult that it seems. Jim and I tried it once--on Mackinac Island, MI and we were glad to get back to the bike rental agency after circumnavigating the island. To successfully ride a tandem you have to be in perfect rhythm with your fellow cyclist. The bike weighs a lot too, so if one of you gets a little wobbly the other has to pick up the slack--or you will fall. 

So Dolly has a blog called "Dolly's Bike Blog,"  ( I was unable to post a link) in which she posts stories and pictures of her adventures, either solo, or with Don. On the cross country trip we teased her about "Dolly Gaggling" because she would stop at every road sign, every park, every interesting thing to see. Dolly rode the ride I had hoped to, but was never fast enough. 

Right now she and Don are biking in Holland. Their trip across the pond was filled with plenty of opportunities to practice meditation, or count backward from 100 in Dutch. Their tandem bike, partially disassembled and in its hardshell case weighs 80+ pounds, so first there was the adventure of paying for the extra weight and making sure the bike got put on the luggage conveyor belt. Then there was sitting on the tarmac at Dulles for about an hour and a half while thunderstorms cruised over the airport. In between was Don's need to unpack his carry on and submit to a thorough pat down because the TSA's dog didn't like him. All was well and they are now somewhere in Holland. But it got me to thinking about my own encounters with TSA agents. 

I have had metal implanted in my body since I tore a tendon in my left foot in 2000. That was followed by a bunionectomy  and more metal, in 2001 and a hip replacement in 2002. Then knee replacements in 2013, another hip replacement in 2015, and shoulders in 2014 and 2016. If that were not enough I then managed to fall off my bike this past February, breaking my right arm just below the replacement prosthesis. That gave me a metal plate and multiple screws so that on x-ray the interior of my right arm looks like an upside down saxophone! 

So, when I travel, usually 3 or 4 times a year, I always tell the TSA or security agent that I have multiple joint replacements and I will make their machine go off. I try to be nice. After all, theirs is a rather thankless job. I don't think they get paid enough for it either. 

I have told agents, mostly in Boston and Denmark, that I do not particularly care who pats me down. So I have had sweet women having bad days who were glad for someone with a smile on her face. And I've also had some agents who were not so nice in their pat downs--but they were thorough. I can only remember one or two agents so perfectly annoying I wondered if they had had a fight with their beloved earlier in the day--or were late to pick up a child, or called in to work on their day off. Or simply enjoyed being mean. 

It was hot and muggy this past August when Jim and I left for our annual trip to Denmark. Despite an air-conditioned bus and terminal I was sweaty when we got to the head of the TSA line. 

"I have multiple metal body parts," I told the agent, as usual. He pointed me to the line for the scanner. 

Of course I needed a pat down afterward. I claimed not to care about the gender of the person patting me down, which is true. But at Logan it must be a woman. While I waited for the person to come do her job I asked to see exactly what the scanner showed. Much to my surprise there was only one metal piece showing in a generic outline of a female person. It was not my right arm but my right hip and showed up like a metal wallet. 

When my friendly TSA agent--and she was friendly--came to pat me down she focused on my back. Because I was so sweaty I asked her if she would straighten out the back of my bra while she was back there. And she started to! "Whoa," I said. "That's not part of your job. I can do it." In reality I really can't reach back that far, but I was not about to get her in trouble. Jim fixed the errant bra back for me. 

But my favorite pat down was in Denmark five or six years ago. No scanner, I just made the metal detector go off.
"Do you want a man or woman for the pat down?"
"I don't care."
At the point they put me on a pedestal (where I always belong, of course) and a very cute young guy came over, prepared to do his job. 
"Knee?" He asked. 
"Knees, feet, and a hip." 
He gave me a funny look. 
"I guess I am bionic." 
He laughed, "No you are a transformer."

If there is a message to this it is a simple one. If you tell people in advance you have a special need they will usually accommodate you. If you truly have trouble walking let the airline know in advance.  There is no reason to be embarrassed because yesterday you ran 10 miles, and then you broke your toe. No one will care and you will go through security faster. I usually pack my hiking poles because I can walk just fine inside. The poles are in the checked bags. The one thing I have never found out, and am not about to try, is whether or not poles with removable rubber tips are considered a problem. I don't need a cane inside either. But I can tell you that most circular knitting needles regardless of the substance from which the point came are OK.  

 Last summer our chorus went to Stockholm on Icelandair. The Keflavik Airport, where we changed planes, went security, and thus were considered to be in Europe,  was mobbed. Eight or so Icelandair flights from eight or so different US and Canadian cities plus those of the start-up airline WOW and an airport under construction to meet this incredible increase of passengers ( that happened over a three year period) meant we all were funneled into a stairwell where we would stand in what seemed like an endless line to go through passport control in Iceland. Some of my fellow singers were worried we would miss our flight, but we were nearly 50 people on the same flight. I was pretty sure the plane would wait for us. Nevertheless I was in said line, trying hard not to push my way to the front.

And then my friend Peter Blanchard sailed by in a wheelchair. His wife, Sudie, was with him. He waved. Peter, whose orthopedic problems are quite possibly as bad as mine waved as he rolled past. If you do use a wheelchair, especially in the US, please make sure you tip the person who has gotten you where you need to go.  I have had interesting conversations with men and women pushing me. Often they have escaped hellacious conditions in their home countries including Yemen and Eritria. The stories they tell are heartbreaking. 

Yes, it is annoying, and sometimes time consuming to have to go through a miserable TSA line in a way we hadn't planned for. Leave early for the airport. Put a smile on your face, be thankful you live in the US, and remember:  None of us want a repeat of 9/11.